Automatic analyzers that analyze blood and other biological samples automatically and output the results are among the apparatuses absolutely necessary to perform efficient analyses at the testing centers and other medical laboratory facilities that subcontract to test/examine samples on behalf of hospitals and clinics that have many patients. It is being desired that these automatic analyzers be more compact, capable of conducting more kinds of analyses, and have higher throughput.
If the reagent set up in the apparatus runs short during analysis, stopping the analysis before taking any necessary steps will reduce the efficiency of the analysis. Automatic analyzers are therefore designed so that if a shortage of reagent is likely, the apparatus will warn the operator about the shortage, thus avoiding the situation that the operator will have to stop the apparatus to replace the reagent with a new one of the same kind during the analysis.
JP 4033060 describes a more advanced technique for preventing a shortage of reagent from occurring during analysis. In the technique of JP 4033060, a first and a second reagent-container storage means are provided beforehand and if the reagent stored within the first reagent-container storage means runs short, a reagent container as a replacement is supplied from the second reagent-container storage means automatically.
According to the technique described in JP 4033060, although a plurality of reagent containers can be stored in the second reagent-container storage means, one reagent container can only be conveyed at a time from the second reagent-container storage means to the first reagent-container storage means. In addition, holding a plurality of reagent containers in the second reagent-container storage means for an extended time requires providing cold-storage means, the provision of which could result in an oversized apparatus structure.
Analyzers are known in various embodiments, e.g., from EP 0 703 457 B1, EP 1 275 966 B1, U.S. Pat. No. 7,547,414 B2 and U.S. Pat. No. 7,384,601 B2.
Those analyzers are used for automatically analyzing samples in order to determine the existence and particularly the concentration of specific components in the samples. Such analyzers are widely used in hospitals and clinical laboratories to analyze biological samples, namely body fluids collected from patients, such as blood and urine, in order to diagnose their morbidities.
A method for analyzing such a biological fluid sample by means of an analyzer of the above mentioned type is explained in, e.g., EP 1 051 621 B1.
The workflow of an analyzer of the above mentioned kind is usually completely sample orientated, i.e., analytical determinations are performed serially in a respective fluid sample, wherein for each analytical determination a set of different reagents is used to be added to a separated part of said sample. It is therefore required to provide a lot of different reagents on the turntable of the apparatus for providing reagents, and it is required that a fast access to particular reagent container assemblies on the turntable by treatment means such as pipetting means or agitating means is possible in order to achieve a high throughput of the analyzer. It is generally required that such an analyzer apparatus and particularly the apparatus for providing reagents has small dimensions to be space-saving.